Friday 23rd December

What fun to get out from under the cardboard boxes, not even to face the
desperate crowds of Christmas shoppers, but instead to find refuge in the
warm, serene and beautiful home of Johanna, the Passionate Cook, where
lunch is quietly bubbling on the stove, boxes of homemade cookies are
stacked three-deep, and one by one the foodbloggers assemble. What a
pleasure to see Celia again, and to meet Martina, Joanna, Zabeena, Melissa and her friend Wampe. A
very cosmopolitan mix, as usual, and as evidenced by the wonderful array
of cookies contributed. As perhaps the least travelled, least
linguistically/culturally gifted of the group, I puzzled over the
Christmas = cookies assumption of the invitation - if the English ever had
this lovely tradition, it hasn't reached me - but in the end decided two
things. Firstly, there were enough expert cookie makers in the group to
meet anyone's cravings for sweet, spicy, germanic treats. Secondly, to me
Christmas means parties, and parties mean nibbles. So I made cheese stars.
To me, that's Christmassy!

Rub the butter into the flour. Stir in the cheese and salt. Mix the egg
yolk with the mustard and three tablespoons of cold water. Add this to the
butter and flour and bring it all together into a firm dough (you may need
to add a tiny bit more water). Clump the dough together, wrap and chill
for at least 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to Gas 5; roll out the dough very thinly and cut into
biscuits with a small star-shaped cutter - should make several dozen. Cook
in batches for 10-12 minutes.

Thursday 22nd December

This apparently back-to-front method of making chicken soup originated in
indecision (must get supper started... but what shall we have?) but I like
the result. Without hours of preparation, you can have an intensely meaty
and mildly spiced soup - feel it doing you good.

Poach the chicken in plenty of salted water for twenty minutes, skimming
occasionally. Remove with a slotted spoon and add the lentils and potatoes
to the water. They will take another twenty minutes to soften: meanwhile
shred the chicken off the bones into fairly small pieces. Fry the onion
and when it begins to soften, add the garlic, cumin and turmeric. Once the
lentils and potatoes are soft, add the chicken and onion to them and
squeeze in orange juice to taste.

Friday 16th December

You know when things don't quite turn out the way you expected, and you
shrug your shoulders and think well, chalk it up to experience: luckily
this time it didn't matter, and I think I know what to do differently next
time...? We've all had those moments. But just sometimes, as you're
shrugging your shoulders and nibbling at the corner of your 'disaster' - a
cake that hasn't risen properly, perhaps, biscuits that are definitely
scorched around the edges - you can't help the guilty thought creeping
into your mind, 'but I like it this way!' There's a secret joy in
the stickily undercooked, the voluptuously overrisen, the densely
misproportioned and the frankly burnt that only those entitled to
'cook's perks' will ever know. I had one of these epiphanies when we tried
to make potato bread. Answering the question 'what shall I do with this
leftover mash?' with an airy 'oh, perhaps I'll make bread with it' (this
being on the list of Things To Try), I didn't actually expect to come home
the next day to a happily steaming breadmaker full of, erm, mashed potato.
It turned out with a squelch: a brick of dense, moist dough, crusty at the
edges but like plasticine in the middle. Apparently substituting mashed
potato for the same volume of flour isn't the way to make potato bread.
Who'dda thunk? BUT it was yummy - nicely squidgy, like a savoury brownie.
So the ducks didn't get to eat it after all (just as well, it would
probably have exploded them. Hurrah for the iron-plated human stomach...)

Saturday 10th December

The great Lulu 'olive' Grimes, no less, has told me how difficult it is to
choose attractive photographs for the November issue of the magazine
because all the recipes for lovely warming casseroles are so brown.
So I'm not too embarrassed by this. In fact I was very pleased with this
casserole, which achieved a good depth of savoury flavour, thanks to the
porcini, despite the absence of meat.

Make up one litre of vegetable stock, adding dried porcini, and leave to
soak. Fry the onion and garlic until soft; add squash and mushrooms and
sweat for ten minutes. Fish porcini out of stock and chop finely; add to
pan. Turn up heat and add marsala, sizzle for a couple of minutes and add
stock. Bring to the boil, cover and simmer on a low heat for half an hour.
After half an hour, add beans and chestnuts and cook with the lid off for
another fifteen minutes.

Thursday 1st December

Mostly, C and I see eye-to-eye - but of course each of us has a foible or
two. He doesn't like pumpkin, Christmas, or woolly jumpers: three things
without which I'd find it very hard to get through the winter. And he
doesn't like the colour green. This is odd, to me: disliking any colour is
odd to me, but nice, calming, subtle, leafy, back-to-nature green?
Weirdo. Now I'm not saying he's extreme about this - in fact it had never
really come up until we bought a house and started to try to furnish it.
All I'm trying to say here is that I think this broccoli soup is
a really nice colour... sort of mossy and dull, an interesting,
age-well, autumnal green. I can live without green walls. I'll just eat
more green food.

Broccoli soup

Everything in the veg drawer, the kitchen sink, and triple helpings of
broccoli. Cook in vegetable stock with a parmesan rind until tender and
vibrate - remove the parmesan rind first if there's anything left of it
(supermarket ones tend to dissolve completely). Serve with slices of
goat's cheese and soda bread on the side.